Archbishop ‘could not have prayed for more’ Lambeth success

Archbishop ‘could not have prayed for more’ Lambeth Conference success


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04 August 2008

The Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops has come to an end in Canterbury after two-and-a-half weeks with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, saying he ‘could not have prayed for more’ success.

He told journalists at the end of the last plenary session and before a final Eucharist service in Canterbury Cathedral that the conference had ‘worked out very much as I had hoped and prayed.’ He said they had not evaded the difficult questions, but admitted that they won’t have provided the answers people may have been looking for. ‘But that doesn’t cause me to lose too much sleep because the conference has never been an executive body that can simply make those sorts of quick fix decisions.’

The bishops issued a Reflections document which stated:

- there was ‘widespread support’ for three moratoria on the ‘ordination of persons living in a same gender union’ to the Episcopate, on the blessing of same-sex unions, and on cross-border incursions or interventions

- there is ‘clear majority support’ for a Pastoral Forum to intercede in disputes and provide a ‘safe space’ for parishes and dioceses which have pulled away from their own diocese or provinces until they can be reconciled

- there was ‘overall willingness’ to enter an Anglican Covenant

- we need to establish a new Anglican Global Relief and Development Agency, as a matter of urgency, to co-ordinate and resource our commitment to the voiceless.


The Archbishop said work on an Anglican development agency would commence within two months; and he laid down a timetable under which progress could be made on the Pastoral Forum and Anglican Covenant.

He said this was possible because of the ‘quite surprising results’ which had emerged at the end of the conference, including a ‘surprising level of sheer willingness to stay together; a surprising level of agreement about what might be necessary to make that happen so that, for all the fact that the details of the Covenant proposals still need a good deal of clarification, nonetheless there is a following wind for that.

"There is also a wide degree of agreement about the need for moratoria on both sides where divisive actions are concerned. And one thing that came up that was not planned and not really expected was a strong level of support for a more coherent and co-ordinated attempt to draw together the work of the communion around issues of justice and international development."

There will be a special meeting of the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and Consultative Council in November this year, followed by a Primates Meeting early next year ahead of the routine meeting of the Consultative Council next May in Jamaica.

Archbishop Williams said he wanted specific proposals on the Pastoral Forum to be drawn up ‘within quite a short time frame’ and said the final text of the Anglican Covenant should be in place within 12 months; although it could take until 2012 or 2013 before all the provinces had assented - or otherwise - to it because of the cycle of synodical meetings. He said: "Where the General Synod of the Church of England meets two or three times a year, there are provinces where Synods meet once every three years. I don’t think one can short-circuit that the way some would like to."

He said the Covenant Process could see the Anglican Communion move away from a loose network of separate Provincial churches into one global church of provincial communities, saying: "I hope that a little bit more mutual responsibility and accountability and a bit more willingness to walk in step will make us more like a church. Not a centralised body with enforced conformity but that willing acceptance of moving together."

Asked to summarise the Lambeth Conference to the ‘people in the pew’, the Archbishop said: "I’d say that the process of the Lambeth Conference rested on a particular assumption: the assumption that bishops needed to speak to each other in a safe place and were capable of doing it respectfully and prayerfully. That’s the first thing.

"Secondly, coming out of that: the Anglican Communion needed to know how deep the commitment was, on people’s part, to staying together. I think we’ve got a bit of an answer to that.

"Third: I think the Communion needed to know what form of action and witness was still possible and credible for it. Even in its current rather wobbly state. And I think something around the March of Witness, something around a few other things that have come up has helped to answer that. I think that might be where I would begin to talk about the Reflections document."

The Archbishop will write a Pastoral Letter to go around the Communion coming out of the Lambeth Conference, in particular to keep the conversations going with those conservative bishops who boycotted the event: "Contact and exchange continues with many people who were at Gafcon, including some of those who were also here. I think I would want to know first of all: What do you think of this? How far does this go to meeting concerns? How far does this provide a basis for co-operation? And tease that out a bit in the months ahead."

He finished with a note in which he said the issue of consecrating people in same-sex relationships and blessing same sex unions was not an issue of human rights but of church teaching and theology. He said: "One complication in discussing all this is that assumption, readily made, that the blessing of a same sex union and/or the ordination of someone in an active same-sex relationship is simply a matter of human rights.

"I’m not saying that is claimed by people within the church but you hear that from time to time. You hear it in the secular press. And that’s an assumption that I can’t accept because I think the issues about what conditions the church lays down for the blessing of unions has to be shaped by its own thinking, its own praying."

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